Real estate used as bail bond collateral has caused headaches in Dallas County for decades.

A scathing grand jury report in 1948 concluded that bail bondsmen and lawyers who write bonds “have little or no property of value, yet they list their property at sometimes many, many times its actual value, for the purpose of making bonds.”

Earlier that same year, Dallas County District Attorney Will Wilson announced that he would assign a subordinate full time to “help break up Dallas County’s bail bond racket.” Wilson noted then that he was unable to recall a single instance in which a bail bond had been forfeited during the two years he’d been in office. And he cited a study that found no bondsman had been called upon to forfeit property used to secure bonds since before World War I.

Questionable practices by bail bondsmen, including their use of property as collateral, prompted the appointment of a court of inquiry in the 1970s.

And The Dallas Morning News reported in 1993 that the Dallas County bail bond board had balked at private appraisals submitted by Allied Bonding Agency that were much higher than appraisal district values.

A private appraiser for Allied, the largest bond company in Dallas County at the time, had estimated the value of two vacant lots in South Dallas and a single-story, frame office building on McKinney Avenue at $635,000 — more than double the appraisal district value.

The bail bond board tried to place a lower value on those properties but was forced to accept the private appraisals after Allied owner Ralph Craig Black sued.

Not long after an appeals court ruled in Black’s favor, The News reported that Allied had written $6.5 million in bonds before abruptly declaring bankruptcy, costing the county at least $2.1 million in lost revenue because of uncollectible bond forfeitures. It was described by a sheriff’s official at the time as “the greatest loss to Dallas County taxpayers in history.”

A bankruptcy court approved the sale of properties once valued at $635,000 to pay creditors. But they brought in only $107,500. And Dallas County’s share was about $42,500 — about seven cents on the dollar.